The Importance of Organization and the Coherence and Impact of Organization Theory

Over the last few decades the field of organization studies has expanded rapidly. It has come to cover almost any social process within the realm of formal organizations. It has imported a great many new theories and ideas from other social sciences such as institutionalism, network theory or various philosophical inspirations, and one ‘turn’ (postmodernist, linguistic, realist etc.) after another have been influential. The recent dominance of institutional theory is particularly remarkable as this theory from the start provided a fundamental criticism of the very idea of a special organization theory – that the level of the individual organization is a relevant one for understanding social processes. At the same time, the impact of organization studies on other social science disciplines has been remarkably small. Even the concept of organization is in fact rare in other disciplines. It is time to reflect on the following questions: Is organization theory still coherent and is coherence something to strive for? Has organizing itself not become excessively neglected? How can new approaches be combined with a core substance of organization? Should organization theory not be more on the offensive, radiating into other disciplines rather than only receiving imports from them? What, if any, are the unique findings of organization theory that other disciplines should import? This sub-plenary session invites a discussion of such questions from different perspectives.